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Sunday, 8 February 2015

Jim's column 7.2.15

John Woodfield, a City
fan who has followed City since the 1950s & sits behind me at
games, wanted information about friendly games played at Highfield
Road in the 1960s against Scottish club Greenock Morton. In the 1960s
Morton (as they were then known) were the up and coming Scottish club
& often referred to as the Scottish Sky Blues because of their
innovative ideas and modern thinking. In 1964 as the Sky Blues were
winning the Third Division, Morton were winning promotion to the top
flight in Scotland for the first time in 12 years & had a deadly
striker called Allan McGraw who scored 51 goals.

Morton boss Hal Stewart
apparently rang Jimmy Hill to suggest that the clubs play a couple of
friendlies & that someone might put up a trophy. Unfortunately it
was impossible to get permission for another competition so JH called
the game at Highfield Road in October 1964, the first leg of the
unofficial 'Most Progressive Clubs Cup'. The game took place just a
week after the signing of goalkeeper Bill Glazier for a world record
£35,000. Glazier had made his debut at Portsmouth three days earlier
but his first appearance at Highfield Road attracted a crowd of
17,029. Morton, despite being without the goal-machine McGraw, raced
into a two goal lead & it wasn't until the last 20 minutes that
City got their act together with John Mitten & George Hudson
netting to rescue a draw.

The clubs had the
re-match at Morton's Cappielow Park in March 1965, won 3-1 by Morton
who included four Danish players including international Kai
Johansen, a real novel signing in those days.

In November 1966 Morton
returned to Highfield Road for another friendly. The Sky Blues were
struggling to live up to their billing as Second Division promotion
favourites & lay sixth in the table having already lost six out
of 18 league games & exited the League Cup to Third Division
Brighton. Three days earlier Hill had recalled Ian Gibson after six
weeks in the reserves & the irrepressible Scot had dazzled in a
3-2 win over Cardiff. Only 4,098 fans turned up on a bitterly cold
night to see a relatively young Sky Blues team inflict only Morton's
second defeat of the season. JH gave debuts to Willie Carr &
Trevor Shepherd alongside other inexperienced youngsters Peter
Thomas, Mick Coop & John Burckitt. Gibbo was in devastating form,
setting up the first two goals for Ronnie Rees & Shepherd with
Bobby Gould heading the third in the 3-2 victory. The following
Saturday the Sky Blues won 3-1 at Molineux & set off on a 24 game
unbeaten run that went through to the end of the season & the
club's promotion to Division One for the first time. John says that
Morton playing in a fluorescent orange kit which was very unusual at
the time & has stuck in his memory almost 50 years later.

My colleagues on the
Telegraph Sports Desk unearthed a lovely old photograph of another
friendly game from August 1983 against the Zimbabwe national team. It
had been the summer of hell for new manager Bobby Gould since his
arrival in May. Seven first team players, including Mark Hateley,
Danny Thomas & Gary Gillespie, had rejected new contracts &
left the club & Bobby had the task of rebuilding the playing
staff. He signed eleven players & gave trials to several others.
The game against Zimbabwe was fulfilling a reciprocal agreement
following City's tour of the African country the previous May &
gave the fans (around 3,000) an opportunity to see some of the new
faces. As it turned out only three of the new signings started the
game & one of those, Charlie George, would have his trial ended
soon afterwards without playing a competitive game.

Keith Thompson.
Goalkeeper Tim Dalton, Steve Hunt, Derek Hall & newcomer Graham
Withey came on as second half substitutes & goals from Withey &
George gave City a 2-0 victory. City fans would have to wait a little
longer to see other new signings such as Ashley Grimes, Micky Adams,
Micky Gynn, Dave Bamber & Trevor Peake.

The question on social
media last Saturday evening after the 2-2 draw with Rochdale was when
was the last time two loan players scored on their Sky Blues debut. I
was amazed that so many people (including some of the local media
men) had forgotten that it was just over a year ago that Chris
Dagnall & Chris Maguire scored the goals in City's 3-1 victory at
MK Dons. Both those players left soon afterwards and neither scored
again for the club. Let's hope the same fate does not afflict Messrs
Samuel & Odelusi. This season has now seen four players scoring
on their debut with Reda Johnson (v Bradford C) & Frank Nouble (v
Gillingham) the others.

Thomas Murden asked me
what the highest number of drawn games in a season is for Coventry
City. He wonders that with nine draws already whether the tem might
be close to a record. The answer is we are some way off the record of
17 set in 1962-63 (Jimmy Hill's first full seasonin charge). Those 17
came in 46 games but the highest percentage of drawn games came in
1997-98 when Gordon Strachan's side drew 16 out of 38 games. The Sky
Blues finished 11th that season, their highest final
position in the last 25 years & if just half of those drawn games
had been won they would have finished fifth, one point outside the
Champions League places.

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About Me

I have supported Coventry City FC since my first visit to Highfield Road in 1962. I am the club's official historian and have a regular column in the Coventry Telegraph. Here I would like to enable my readers who can't buy the paper to access my columns and comment.